Each month I interview inspiring lady bosses about the social media strategies she uses to grow her business. I’m thrilled to welcome to amazing bosses, Jessica Stansberry and Jaclyn Mellone of the All Up in Your Lady Business podcast. Jessica helps fellow online entrepreneurs understand the more “techy” parts of an online biz at JessicaStansberry.com and recently launched Edenhouse Media, a marketing and web design company. Jaclyn offers Instagram strategy via Jaclyn Mellone and Chasing Dreams and Littles is a monthly membership for busy moms to connect.
Enjoy this awesome interview!
Tell us about your podcast, All Up in Your Lady Business!
Jessica: Our podcast is a place where we share twice weekly tips and tricks for the ladies (obviously) who are growing their businesses! We interview a fellow lady business owner each week and have weekly “chit chat” episodes where we usually get off-topic, but always provide strategic business advice.
What 3 words would you use to describe the your business?
Fun, informative and giggly 😉
What social media accounts do you use for the podcast and what are your favorite platforms?
Jessica: We utilize our Facebook Group and Instagram the most but we also have a slow-growing Twitter following. Jaclyn is the Instagram “master” so we had a huge following there even before we launched which was GREAT. It has allowed us to meet and connect with other lady business owners we never would have crossed paths with otherwise.
Jaclyn: Our Instagram account has helped us grow our listeners as well as our Facebook Group members. While Instagram is a key part of our strategy, our Facebook Group is our favorite place to connect with our community.
Jessica: We have some big plans for our Facebook group as we revamp some things within the podcast (and maybe even re-brand, hint hint) so I’d say there’ll be even more fun happening over there soon.
What is your social media strategy? How do you use social media?
Jaclyn: The core part of our social strategy revolves around our community, creating opportunities for connection, education and inspiration. Connecting with other lady business owners and forming genuine relationships have been instrumental for both Jessica and me in building our own businesses….this is what inspired us to create a podcast! Being able to bring our episodes to life and have members of our community connect with us, each-other, and our guests is truly the power of social media!
Instagram: Instagram was our first social media account and continues to be one of the biggest drivers of traffic for us. Before we even launched, we were able to build interest and get feedback so when we did launch, we actually had an audience to launch to! What I love the most about our Instagram might be a bit of a surprise. While I think that Instagram is the best place for us to meet new people and share tips and tricks from our episodes…its not necessarily the best place for them to get to know us, or us to get to know them. It is however the perfect place for us to introduce them to our podcast and our Facebook Group!
Facebook Group: We have daily prompts to encourage conversation, we post quotes and tidbits from episodes, ask questions, run challenges, announce babies…you name it! We also encourage members to make their own posts and start their own discussion threads in the group.
Twitter: We are new to twitter and just starting to scratch the surface. Right now we are mainly sharing quotes from episodes, both new and old! We are starting to explore how to bring more of a community feel to our Twitter account, stay tuned!
You may notice there are some BIG Social Media platforms missing. We take the time to implement one platform at a time and also to make sure it the right platform for both us and our audience. Pinterest is next on our list, but don’t be surprised if we never create a Facebook Page or Snapchat account.
What social media accounts do you love?
Jessica: Is it weird to love my own?!? (Join Jessica’s Biz Tech Collective!) Ha! Really though, I enjoy A TON of Facebook groups, I think that it’s a GREAT way to grow your audience and everybody who’s looking to nurture a community, should consider it. Some of my favorites are Savvy Business Owners by Heather Crabtree and the Screw the 9-5 free community! I also like all of the ones I know Jaclyn will mention, ha!
Jaclyn: Well yes, all of the above! I have to start by saying I’m obsessed with our podcast group and my Chasing Dreams and Littles group! I also love Adrienne Dorison’s group Society of Self-Mastery. Some of my Instagram favs are the Rising Tide Society and Best Friends for Frosting.
What are you proud of? What do you wish you did better?
Jessica: We’re proud of our Instagram growth and engagement, for sure; like I said before, we (Jaclyn really) started growing that platform before we even launched which gave us a really great foot forward and gave our audience a place to really engage. We’re both realizing that we haven’t utilized the Facebook group as much as we should have or need to but that’s changing VERY soon and it’ll be business-party-central in that puppy!
Jaclyn: While we have thousands of followers on Instagram, I love the tight-knit feel of our Facebook Group. It continues to amaze me the power of our relatively small group. Not only has it helped us to connect with our community (online, Skype and even in real life!), it has helped both Jessica and I grow our own individual businesses, but it has also helped our community connect with each other and our guests. Clients, friendships, and collaborations have all come from our group – we are super proud of that! That said, I know we can do better and we will…more to come on that!
What tools do you use to help schedule and plan social media?
Jessica: We use Edgar to schedule and publish posts for our Facebook group and Planoly to plan out Instagram and, thankfully, we have an amazing assistant who really takes the reigns as far as getting everything scheduled out so things go smoothly for us.
What advice would you share with other lady bosses?
Jessica: Don’t try and do it all! There are SO MANY social media platforms out there and it can all be very overwhelming but not all platforms are good for each business, so, take some time, research your target market, see what platforms they’re on and go with that; also, make sure that you LIKE the social media services that you’re using because if you hate Twitter (we’re really bad Twitter-ers <—totally a word), for example, it’s going to be painful and not fun to use that platform so just don’t, and then, in a little bit, if you feel like you can take on another outlet, go for it.
Jaclyn: I couldn’t agree more! I will add that sometimes double down on what IS working is the best strategy instead of always looking for the new thing. We have decided to pour more energy and creativity into our Facebook Group because it is working.
If you enjoyed reading this interview, imagine how much fun Jessica and Jaclyn’s podcast is! My favorite All Up in Your Lady Business episodes are their chats with Heather Crabtree and Emily Thompson, and marathon call with Kathleen Shannon. I’m also looking forward to listening to their most recent episode with Jessica Rasdall. Catch up with Jessica and Jaclyn in their Facebook Group, Instagram and Twitter.
Thanks so much for sharing your ‘lady business’ Jessica and Jaclyn!